On Sapphire Wings
Chapter Eight"It's not funny.
We're not laughing like we did before.
It's not funny.
It's just hurting more and more…
Take your time to figure out,
It's not that plain to see.
If you need someone to blame.
You can blame it all on me…"
There are some people that never change. Some people never seem to age, some keep the same personality over very long periods of time, and some just stay the same as always no matter what ordeals they go through.
Lloyd vaguely remembered that his mother had been that sort of person before she died. He'd grown up somewhat quicker than the others his age, but she'd always looked exactly the same.
Artewa had changed, but not in the right way. When he'd known her before, she'd always looked, well, like Artewa. Now, she seemed to simply be a younger version of her sister. And not just a little.
Except for her angry eyes. As far as he knew, Artewa never got angry, and the effect was easy to imagine. Burning green jewels cast there glowing flame up at him, and on her small, innocent face, it was like staring into an abyss.
"They say my sister died." She said. Every syllable was very carefully pronounced and each word seemed to glitter with poison. "She got sliced up by some guy named Dart, because he thought she was evil…"
Lloyd shook his head, and while unconsciously scratching at a black tattoo on his shoulder, said: "It was my fault."
"I didn't doubt that." Artewa growled. All around them, Winglies were bustling about, but they were respectfully ignoring the two's conversation. Just as well. "I was surprised to hear that she died alone though."
"That's a lie." Lloyd hissed. "I was there, I tried to save her, Artewa. You know I wouldn't leave her."
The girl, so young but seeming so aged by her fury, sat down on the side of a bed and looked up at him, and then said, "Then what happened?"
"It's a long story." The statement was pointless, he knew she wouldn't mind a long story just as much as he knew he wouldn't tell her the whole thing anyways. "She got dragged into something I shouldn't have even informed her about, and then I got cocky and figured she would be alright holding Dart back a moment."
She listened intently, some of the blaze in the jade fire eyes fading into a smoldering ash.
"When I finally got back to her, it was too late. She was too far over the Line."
"Why didn't you stay with her?" The voice had no malice in it, only genuine curiosity. Lloyd felt a wave of affection; he'd known Artewa since she was a baby and he had hoped she would believe him.
"I made a bad judgement and placed my ideals over her right at the wrong time."
"How?"
He shook his head. "I figured she'd be alright."
Artewa looked at the floor awhile, then said, "Oh."
"I'm sorry Artewa."
She just nodded.
Lloyd had lived in the coastal village called Hisara for a long time. During his teenage years, he had taken up the identity of the mercenary Rowan and had been away from home a lot, but once this small profession proved fruitless and far too dangerous, he returned home. His parents had moved away into the mountains to study plantlife, and he and Lenus lived together.
It was not long after that Lenus's mother had had her third child, though the first, Lenus's brother, had died. When Lenus and Artewa's parents were both killed by a monster two years later, Artewa had became both a little sister and a daughter to Lloyd, and the fact that neither was true never interfered. He and Lenus had raised her up to the best of their ability.
She had still been a little girl when Melbu Frahma passed by the village, disguised as the human, Diaz. Coincedance, or maybe fate, had led Lloyd and Lenus out to investigate, but it was not coincedance that brought the two of them back home only long enough to get Artewa somewhere safe and to get supplies before they followed the Wingly masquerading as a man to the lands of the humans. After that, Lloyd only saw Artewa once on a short visit home.
It was when he came home that Lloyd found that his parent's had been killed. Friends said it was by someone who had lived up in the mountains too, though Lloyd never found out who.
His hand instinctively went up to his last momento of his parents, a small stone pendant with many small carved stars decorating it's front, and small Wingly ruins on the back.
"Has the castle been comfortable enough for you?" Lloyd asked Artewa.
She shrugged. "Not bad. I don't understand much of the human tongue, just the little bit that you and Lenus taught me, but everyone's really nice, and that Meru girl has been helping me get by."
"That's good." Lloyd said. "What has – what was his name? – Curakan decided on doing?"
"The Humanleader, Albert, said that we could build some houses here, so I guess that's the plan."
"Is that what you want?"
Artewa looked up at him, surprised. "I forgot how good you were at doing that. No, it's not what I want. But that doesn't matter."
"Yes it does. What do you want?"
Artewa looked at him again, trying to read his thoughts. With an internal smile, he realized he'd taught her to do it; he had always been the kinda person who liked to know what cards were in another persons deck. And she was right, he was good at it. "I don't know what I want. I want to know who it was that killed the people in Deningrad…"
This time, Lloyd was confused. "How did you know about that."
"I heard Meru and Albert talking about it. If some dumb guys are gonna go and break the peace with the humans, I want to be able to say, 'I helped try and stop them,' you know?"
Something digested in Lloyd's brain. It had been a long time since he'd last seen his adoptive sister, and she'd matured amazingly. Most Winglies aged strangely, but never like this.
It also occurred to him that she was now a young teenager, not the little girl he remembered her as. She was capable of things he hadn't expected.
Lloyd looked up as there was the clack of steel boots in the hallways, and an armor-clad guard ran in, his face urgent. He looked around a moment, then walked over to him.
"Are you Lloyd?" He asked.
Lloyd nodded, and he said, "His majesty Albert requests your presence, and your Wingly companions. It's urgent."
As the guard rushed off, Lloyd shook his head to Artewa. "I gotta go Ari. I'll be back later."
She looked ready to protest, but shrugged and said, "Okay."
Unsure of exactly what 'urgent' identified as by ways of emergencies, he walked over to Meru, Guaraha and Kianako and said, "Albert wants us."
"Why?" Meru asked. "I didn't think he'd cut us short like that."
"I think it's pretty important."
She nodded. "Alright, let's go."
Wink was shocked.
The two figures that stumbled into the castle were of course very familiar to her, but both were covered in dirt and injuries, and it somehow – unpurified her memory of them. She was sure something bad had happened.
"Dart!"
"Shana!"
The two of them smiled, and Dart muttered, "Hey, everyones here…"
"Are you alright?" Albert asked, putting a supporting hand on his friends shoulder. Dart shrugged.
"Seles is in trouble."
"What!?" Miranda exploded. "What happened?"
"Somebody came to Seles and torched it. It was still a mess from when Fruegel raided it, and we didn't stand a chance." Dart sighed and backed over to a wall which he leaned on heavily, panting under his breath like a dog. "The population was already so reduced too…now nobody's left…"
A dangerous signal went of in Wink's mind, and she slowly asked, "Who attacked it?"
Dart looked up at her funny and said. "A Wingly. It was right after I got the message about Deningrad. I think he might have had some relation to…"
Just as the words began to leave his lips, Meru and the other Winglies ran up, all with worried expressions on their faces.
Dart raised an eyebrow and finished, "…Lloyd…"
There was a long, scary moment where the current and old Divine Dragoons looked each other down, and neither said anything. Finally, Albert sighed.
"He and his companion came with Wink, Miranda and Luanna." He explained. He nodded his head to Kian. "His name is Kianako, and there is no point in introducing Lloyd."
"Pleasure." Dart said to Kianako, and though his face moved towards the receiver of his words, his deep eyes never left his ex-adversaries face.
"We have some explaining to do." Luanna said finally. "Multiple stories have to be brought explained, and if I may, this isn't the place for it."
"Yes." Albert said, and his eyes went softly onto Dart in a look that said, Stay quiet now, we'll talk later.
**
"Maybe this time, I'm finally losing my mind.
Cuz I could use the change…"
**
It took a half hour to get all the stories out, and as soon as everyone had been clued in, Miranda, Luanna and Emille took Shana to another room to rest. Albert and Dart had gone off a distance to talk about strategies, and Wink and the winglies got the message that it was a good time to leave.
"You can meet my sister if you'd like." Lloyd told her indifferently. "If you have no where else to go."
Wink nodded and followed the four silver haired individuals out. As soon as they'd left, Dart closed his eyes in frustration and said,
"I don't like this situation."
"No one does." Albert replied softly. "But we have to stay open-minded. We don't have many other options."
"You want to know what I think, Albert?" The sandy-haired king of Serdio nodded, and Dart continued with a growl in his voice. "I think we have a terrorist on our hands with an amazing control over magic. After what I saw in Seles, there's only one wingly who could match that kind of magic, and guess what? He's here right now, waiting for one of us to be vulnerable enough so that he can attack 'em without getting seen."
"Dart, there's nothing I can do about…"
Dart made a fist with his gloved hand and struck the wall angrily, his torquise eyes burning. "I know, dammit! But it's so stupid, we have on our side, what? Me, you, Shana, Miranda and Meru, and then what? Two wingly terrorists, one wingly who's never fought anyone in his life, two Sacred Sisters that are incapable of battle, and Emille. That's bull!"
Albert reacted fast. With a swift blur of jade, he drew himself regally up in front of Dart, and his voice reached a dangerous tone, the one saved only for when he was trying to hide his anger and remain kingly. Dart was startled quiet, and listened with awe at the voice that the country worshipped. "Dart, I dislike this as much, if not more, than you. My best friend since childhood died slowly on that winglies blade, but I am willing to take his offer of alliance, simply because he may be the only person who can stand up to whoever this killer is." The voice became darker, if possible, and lost all formality. "I would like more than anyone to kill him where he stands, but I won't. And do you know why, Dart? Because in the end, he's just a person like us. He's got jerked around and he doesn't really know who he is anymore, but in the end, he's just walking the path, just like everyone else."
Dart didn't say anything. Maybe it was the rich sincerity of the words, or the fact that, behind the fancy volcabulary and intellectual formality, Albert had a side of him that was just a crude, angry and vengeful as everyone else. Just walking the path, as he'd said. And there was somehow much more humanity behind that barbaric humanness of the king of Serdio, though it was intimidating; something not often assosciated with Albert J. Dashiara of Bale.
Albert slowly leaned against the wall and shut his eyes. "I'm tired of this. I wish we could spend just a little time without having to watch everyone around us die. I know Kyris is going to attack Bale – it's the most wealthy kingdom in the world, especially with the union of Tiberoa and Serdio. Where better to draw human blood from? But he has some angle that I can't place…I think he's trying to either attack places that are vulnerable and rich in human population, or he's trying to get rid of all my allies."
"Why human blood?" Dart asked.
"There's any number of reasons. Perhaps he holds a grudge with the humans? Maybe he was in league with Melbu Frahma, and wants revenge for his defeat? It's even possible that he is just randomly killing; he didn't mind letting two of his companions die, and he also didn't mind Lloyd being present at the destruction of Deningrad. It's very difficult to ascertain exactly what he wants, being as we don't know where he's from, what his motives are, or what he'll do next."
Dart shook his head. "Who do you think comes next."
"I think Tiberoa." Albert said solemnly. "And I want less then anything for Emille's family and country to be in danger."
Dart waited for him to continue, and after a long pause, his friend supplied his meaning, "I think we need to go to Tiberoa before it's too late. But something bothers me. Kianako said that Kyris used a stone to destroy deningrad, and though he knew very little about it, he did know that it only worked when the girl, Nyisann, activated it. So why did he let her die so quickly?"
"Your right…" Dart's eyes widened. "He must have another weapon to use against us."
"It was simply a wingly fireball that started Seles' burning, correct?"
Dart nodded.
"Then he doesn't have anything besides his own magic right now. But I doubt that he is going to continue this without some sort of higher magic. What do you think is special about this Nyisann? She obviously had some power over the jewel, but why only her?"
"Well, whatever the answer is, we have to get rid of Kyris right away. We'll see what he has in store for us when we get there."
"Kyris is not Lloyd. He knows who we are, and he knows that we will retaliate to his attacks. However, we don't know what he wants. It was easy with Lloyd, but this is totally different. Yet, it's almost familiar…" Albert smiled viciously, another thing Dart had never seen him do before. "However, this time we won't let him get away. We're going to give him no time to regret what he's done, though he will once we're done with him."
**
A/N: FINALLY!! YAY!! {celebrates. Confetti flies} I'm SOOOO sorry everyone, my computer had to be reset, and I lost most of my Word documents. However, I'm back and I'm gonna be doing some major updating lots, just cuz I'm so sorry. Sorry sorry sorry sorry…ect ect…
Also, I swear that this boring part in the story will pass, I'm basically getting everything set up right now. Next chapter will involve blood (yay for Aerena ^_____^ Lol, just kidding.)
Oh, and since it was so poorly done, the double stars halfway through the story are just there to separate the lyrics from the story (PS: I thought those lyrics were pretty funny for Albert, who seems to be pretty stressed in this chappy.)
Okay, I think I have some questions to answer too, so I might as well now.
1) Striker: Despite the amazing resemblance I wish I hadn't made, the jewel Shishai created that Nyisann used was NOT a dragoon spirit. When I called her a Wingly Dragoon, I'd forgotten that dragons are dead for a dragoon spirit to be made. However, it was said that she hadn't used the dragons, like dragoons do, but had befriended and mastered it, so I suppose it's possible that it willingly became the dragon spirit required. I dunno. I'll go into better detail later on in the story, so try not to think of it as a Kikaiyu brainfart, but a well thought out plotline. Please? Well, it was worth a try.
2) SorsX: Ya, I meant the "ride in the forest" as the switch between Emille and Lenus.
I apologize for the lateness and the ultra long A/N, but I hope you enjoyed this chapter anyways. LOVE YOU ALL!! {hugs for all}